In food retail shops and sushi-go-round restaurants, dedicated cooked rice molding apparatus are used as devices which mass produce rice balls for hand-rolled sushi. For example, as described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-197823, a cooked rice molding apparatus is provided with a forming section which forms the cooked rice supplied from a hopper into prescribed formed cooked rice products while compressing the cooked rice.
Referring to FIGS. 9A to 9 C in combination, a forming section 1 has a pair of forming rollers 2, 2 which rotate in directions opposite to each other around a prescribed horizontal rotary axis, and a pair of supporting panels 4, 4 which support end surfaces of the forming rollers 2, 2. In this forming section 1, sushi rice 10 from the upstream side is fed to between the forming rollers 2, 2, and the sushi rice 10 is sandwiched and compressed with concave molding surfaces 3 formed on outer surfaces of the forming rollers 2,2, whereby a cylindrical rice ball 10 is released from the downstream side and is caused to fall onto a tray T.
However, this forming method using the forming rollers 2, 2 had problems as described below. That is, in general, sushi rice 10 is very gluey and, therefore, when the sushi rice 10 is sandwiched and compressed with the concave molding surfaces 3 as shown in FIG. 9A, the rice ball 10 sticks to the concave molding surfaces 3, with the result that the rice ball 10 sometimes falls onto a discharge surface T of the tray and a receiving bed in an aslant inclined posture.
Similarly, when the rice ball 10 falls and drops down from the concave molding surfaces 3 as shown in FIGS. 9B and 9C, part of the rice ball 10 comes into contact with part of the supporting panels 4, 4 and becomes slant, with the result that the rice ball 10 sometimes falls aslant onto the discharge surface T.
When the rice ball 10 falls aslant, the rice ball 10 may be deformed and collapse due to the impetus of the fall. Also, when the rice ball 10 rolls on the discharge surface T at the moment of a fall, resulting in a change in position and direction, it is necessary to correct the direction and position of the rice ball 10 in conveying the rice ball 10 to a discharge section to carry out the next step.
Hence, to solve the above-described problems, the present invention has as its object the provision of a cooked rice molding apparatus which ensures that a formed cooked rice product falls while maintaining almost the same posture without inclining.